


And when you're far away, I still feel it all

by crinkledpages



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 21:14:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinkledpages/pseuds/crinkledpages
Summary: Donghyuck, his golden prince - his time is almost up. Renjun's heart wants to push back the clock, but his hands move contrarily. The earth bends to his will, and the last leaf falls.





	And when you're far away, I still feel it all

**Author's Note:**

> a spin-off on [@moonfleur's 00fftober challenge piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20880548) because I fell in love with her beautiful nomin and had a strong impulse to write a renhyuck.

Sheltered under the thick bough of the oak tree, Renjun watches as a leaf delicately breaks off, carried gently by the wind until it lands to rest on his outstretched palm.

A delightfully warm shiver shoots up his arm and his spine, and threads down to his toes. _More_, he wishes, and light tremors wrack through the giant oak, more crisp red leaves floating onto his person, more warmth settling into his bones, breaching its gloomy, murky cold.

“Stop it.”

A mess of red leaves is strewn across Donghyuck’s face and body. Beautiful, Renjun thinks, as the sunlight catches his honey skin when he shifts to sit up, red leaves spraying onto his lap. Renjun aches to rest his head on it, so he does. His head tingles where it touches the leaves. A hand comes up to brush against his hair, the long strands tangling in between his fingers. He is a selfish creature, after all. Stealing the sun and the cold winds, but having complete reign over neither. A shadow, a subject.

“You know it’s only a matter of hours,” he murmurs stubbornly into his stomach. The oak tree shakes again.

He feels a sharp tug on his scalp. “Yes, but it _hurts_.” Donghyuck throws his head backwards, wanting to feel the heat and the light hugging him as they wait out the last few hours of daylight, however weak. Renjun fidgets blindly for the hand on his hair, pulling it to his lips to plant soft kisses on each finger. 

He observes Donghyuck’s hand, tracing the curves and planes he’s come to know so well. “Do you remember the solstice?” 

He hears a scoff, but Donghyuck answers anyway, bending over to look into his eyes. “Your hair was longer.” 

“You like it when it’s short.” He hums, rolling onto the ground and rearranging his body to pull Renjun close again. He closes his eyes, the memory of the two of them on the tree waiting for the sunrise vivid and real. They had leapt onto the ground fearlessly like young gods, rolling each other onto the tall reeds bending and swaying in the mild breeze. Renjun had taken one between his lips, an invitation, and Donghyuck had kissed him deeply.

Donghyuck was always radiant, but for just one day every year, his eyes and skin glow, a halo surrounding him as if to show how untouchable he is, how unreachable he is even though he’s right next to Renjun. Renjun has witnessed so many days just like this one with him, when he shines the brightest, like the hot star that he is, but he’s always taken by surprise every time. He hadn’t dared to touch him, until Donghyuck had reached out first, like a king permitting his consort.

“I’m tired.”

“Are you?” But he already knows. Donghyuck’s limbs weigh heavy under the waning sunshine. Above them, Renjun sees a flock of swallows shoot across the sky, South-bound. He can hear time tick by with each flap of their wings. He has watched nearly a hundred sunrises and sunsets go by already, has watched his golden tan turn a sickening jaundice shade with each passing day, just as Donghyuck has watched Renjun’s pallor turn slightly pinker, hands lukewarm as ever - watched as Renjun became the most himself he could be.

A warm palm rests atop his knee, slithering down to wrap around his thigh. “Renjun,” he breathes. His other hand dances lightly up the planes of his neck, jaw, cheek, before dropping completely. Donghyuck uses his last bit of energy to drape his entire body over Renjun’s, burying his face into the crook of his shoulder, whispering _renjunrenjunrenjuns_ into his collarbone. Renjun’s skin catches fire as easily as dry grass where his fingers grip into his leg. He breathes deeply. The air already smells staler, deader. Alone again, soon.

Like this, the rest of the afternoon passes with two boys wrapped around each other, a bed of lichen cushioning them as they drift between wakefulness and slumber, a ring of fallen leaves encircling them like the last vestiges of a golden battlefield protecting their beloved prince to the very last minute, even though the prince has already let the enemy in himself. 

“Just stay awake a little bit longer, please.” So desperate, so pitiful, but Renjun still takes so much anyway. The sentence hangs between them, and moves into a disappointing silence, but he doesn’t have the heart to pull him from the last few blissful moments of sleep even if it’s to have more –

“Time.”

Renjun startles. “What –”

It takes a beat longer for a reply, and he knows that Donghyuck has to struggle to let coherent words carry through the rising and eddying cloudiness of red and brown. 

“Time. Home.” He says in between ragged breaths. Renjun matches each one with a kiss. How cruel, as if he’s draining his love of everything bright and warm with each one. And yet how befitting and right. 

A weak hand curls into his, portending their impending separation. He remembers when they had first devised it, on that hill in Jilin so many suns ago.

_Squeeze my hand once if it’s time. Two if it’s not. _

“I’m so cold”, he gasps softly.

_Sing me something about autumn_, he had once asked in their tenth cycle. The moon had been the highest in the sky that they had ever seen, a glowing incandescent orb illuminated by an army of tiny stars.

Renjun had smiled a sad smile. _No one likes to listen to songs about autumn._

_Then I will be the first._ And Renjun had closed his eyes, voice shaky as he sang a song that he’d heard from a tribe of villagers in ancient China, long before he’d met Donghyuck.

He sings it now, grounding him with his voice, just as he’s grounded by the trees and soil.

Donghyuck squeezes once. Renjun waits. Nothing. 

He gathers his lovely golden prince in his arms as the last leaf falls.


End file.
